INTERVIEW: I'd like to be here

United manager Greg Abbott today confirmed that talks about his contract situation are ongoing as work to plan and prepare for next season continues at a fast pace.

“I’ve been able to get out and watch a few games over the course of the last week,” he said. “That’s been good because we’re following up on a few targets we have.

“I’ve had dialogue with John Nixon over the phone about what we want to do next season and we’re making our plans to rebuild the squad. Getting out to see players is all part of that. It’s taking shape and we’re also looking at how we want to restructure other areas behind the scenes.”

“I’d like to be here to put that all into place,” he admitted. “I’ve been away doing my stuff and John [Nixon] has been away doing his, so it’s just a case that we’ve all been very busy.

“We’ll get together and talk about it more when things calm down a bit,” he added. “We should also be able to finalise the details for Graham Kavanagh, Tony Caig and Eric Kinder at the same time.

“In principle we have near enough agreed on it. We just haven’t had an opportunity to sit down. I don’t foresee too many problems but football is a precarious industry. You can never take anything for granted.

“We have a small coaching staff and we think we work well together as a team. We’re really close knit and hopefully we will sort things out so we can take this thing on together.”

“As soon as we are there with it we will let everyone know,” he said. “These things do take time because there is more than one person to think about. We enjoy working with each other and it’s our intention to keep the group together and get on with the job of making sure we’re much better and stronger than we were this season next time round.

“We’re all looking forward to that challenge so we should have some news on the contracts for all of the coaching staff soon.”